While I am on a questionable vacation this week, please check out this guest post from a good friend of mine from the Dinosaur Train who is trying to make this crazy freelance life work amidst the pandemic. Cat was featured on this blog a few years ago when she let me interview her about how she makes money busking. If you’re also a freelancer in the arts with a financial story to tell, I’d love to share it here – reach out to brokeGIRLrich@gmail.com to talk about a possible guest post.
Facebook feels like the Goldilocks of the recent pandemic— if we can even agree to call it that— with folks arguing left, right, and center about the severity of the virus, the need to wash hands for the length of a sonnet, suggestions to go vegan, to ignore the CDC, to listen to the CDC, to close everything, to close nothing, to hunker down, to buy a cheap flight to Barbados and, in true millennial fashion, to just die or whatever.
Personally, all I’ve been able to do for the last two days is wonder where my next paycheck could come from.
I am an actor, musician, model, puppeteer, and songwriter. Clearly, working gig to gig is my life, and I’m no stranger to working gigs with definitive end dates, knowing it’ll take hustle and time to book the next one. I’m no stranger to 100+ auditions (I keep count) in the span of three months. And I’m no stranger to needing multiple side hustles to keep me afloat between gigs.
But it’s not just in my performative life that I rely on gig economy— I do for my for my day jobs, as well.
I’m a freelancer.
My two most lucrative day jobs are, incidentally, both my oldest and my newest ones to date. I have been modeling for a local college’s photography department as a classroom fashion model for eight years, and I had started commuting to Connecticut to teach kids and teens guitar, piano, and voice. I have several other more inconsistent side hustles as well (babysitting, building and painting clothing racks, street team work, busking in the subway, etc.), but those two day jobs were keeping me in the green. They were relatively consistent, they were with reputable companies, they provided me with a 1099, and best of all, they made me truly happy. How often does an artist get to say that about their day jobs?
And then Coronavirus swept in.
Within 24 hours, the proverbial sh*t hit the proverbial fan. The college I had been modeling for went fully online, eliminating the need for in-class models; and the studio in Connecticut decided to close alongside their school district. I don’t blame them at all— in fact, I’m proud of both of them for looking out for the health of their students and staff.
Still… one morning, I have two great day jobs (I had even been offered a second teaching position at another studio nearby just that afternoon), and by the time I’m on the train home to Queens, I’m completely unemployed.
And those 1099s? You can’t file for unemployment with those.
Well, I thought… I can always use this sudden free time to hit every audition left in the month, and for SURE book a performance gig for the summer!
And then the auditions began canceling.
And theaters started canceling the remainder of their season.
And suddenly, there are fewer and fewer gigs to hustle for.
This is fine, I thought, quoting that little meme dog in his bowler hat smiling blithely in a burning house. I can apply to be a Broadway usher. I can apply to work concessions. I have experience, and they’re always hiring. It’ll be fine.
And then Broadway shut down.
So now I’m scrambling. Anyone need a babysitter? Anyone need a painter? Anyone need their apartment organized? You don’t want people in your apartment? That’s fair.
Well, in that case, anyone need flyers distributed? Does anyone even want to take a flyer? It might have coronavirus on it. Should I busk? Will the quarters I’m dropped be safe to pick up?
Maybe not…
Schools shut down, theaters shut down, but the rent does not shut down. Bills don’t shut down. Freelancers can’t file for unemployment. And the bottom has fallen out of the gig economy.
The gig economy, and especially the entertainment aspect of gig economy, has survived through recessions, through depressions, and through multiple wars… but a pandemic?
Will the arts survive this?
Will the artists?
I guess we’ll see.
___________
If you are looking for some resources during this crazy hime, here are two:
https://
And if anyone needs guitar, puppetry, banjo, or voice lessons via skype… hit me up!
Unfortunately, the arts are much higher on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs than health/food/physical security. OK, I’ve slightly stretched the Maslow idea, but I think we’re all heading straight back down to level one, whether we like it or not. On the plus side, you can now consider yourself a luxury item??
Speaking more seriously, creative folk have got what it takes to survive this. We’re resilient, we’re used to working with uncertainty, we’re adaptable, we’re full of ideas and strategies, we have a broad skill base and we’re great networkers. I don’t know what you’ll think of to make some money, but you’ll come up with something.
It’s true – a lot of my friends (and I kind of feel the same) say that right now just feels like those weird breaks when you’re in-between gigs. Will we ever work again? Probably. Are we used to wondering if we’ll ever work again? Yes.